Consider a market that you visit often, have family in, went to college at, spent time in the past.You will have a better sense of what the good / bad parts of town are compared to a city you never visited.Best of Luck!

Columbus has some solid fundamentals like job growth, population growth, and entry prices that still make sense compared to rents.

Then your heirs can inherit your position and keep it going every 10 years.....etc....as compared to the MIN which is due in 30 years.For example here are a few recent CRE deferred sales trust deals:- Owner who sold a $34M apartment complex and moved his funds into a Deferred Sales Trust. - $18M Business Sales of Veterinarians who sold multiple practices in Virginia and Indiana.Another example, was for a couple who sold their primary residence for $26M in Newport Beach defer $6M in capital gains tax.

The smaller new builds still go for a pretty penny in my area and it's not affordable compared to what else is out there.

Look at the age compared to there useful life and cost to replace.

What is occupancy and rate and how does that compare to your competition? 

We don’t know any PMCs to recommend in the area mentioned, but since selecting the wrong PMC is usually more harmful than selecting a bad tenant, you might want to read our series about “How to Screen a PMC Better than a Tenant”:https://www.biggerpockets.com/member-blogs/3094/91877-how-to-screen-a-pmc-better-than-a-tenant-part-1-services-and-processesWe recommend you get management contracts from several PMCs and compare the services they cover and, more importantly, what they each DO NOT cover.

Compare it to your cost of living now, and that's a great start. 

We do not change fees or terms unless your appraisal happens to come in lower than the purchase price or the market rent comparables come in lower than expected.

I totally get why real estate feels daunting compared to stocks.